The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-01-13
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
"HE SHALL DIVIDE THE SPOIL WITH
THE STRONG.n


In Some Way There Will be a New APP
portionment, and Many Millionaire
Estates VIII Dissolve Into the Posses
sion of the DIasses.
BROOKLYN, Jan. 9.-The opening hymn at
the Brooklyn Tabernacle this morning begins:
o, could l speak the matchless worth
o, could 1 sound the giories forth
Which in my Saviour shine
DR.. Talmage explained somo Of the prophe-
cies before giving out the hymn and then
preached on the subject distribution of Re-
wards, taking his text from Isaiah lii, u:
'Iie shall divide the spoil with the strong"
d. Talmago spoke as follows:
Ny family, who saw it with their own eyes
year before last, tell me that in the Coliseum
ct Rome, where prosecutors used to let out
the half starved lions to eat up Christians,
there is now planted the figure of cross.
And rejoice to know that the upright piece
OF wood nailed to a transverse piece has be-
come the symbol, not more of suffering than
Oh victory. 1t is of Christ the conqueror that
my text speaks. AS kingly warrior having
subdued an empire, might divide the palaces,
and mansions, and cities, and valleys, and
mountains among his officers, SO Christ is
going 20 divide up all the earth and all the
heavens among His people, and you and /
viii have to take our share if we are strong
in faith and strong i'll our Christian loyalty,
for my text declares it: "EIe shall divide the
spoil with the strong"
The capture of this round planet for Christ
is not so much Of q Job as you might imagine,
when the church takes off its coat and rolls
up its sleeves for the work, as it will There
are 16,000000,000 people now in the world,
and there are 450,000,000 Christians. Sub
tract the 450,009000 who are Christians
from the 10000, 900, 900, and there are II ESQ.,
OG0,000 left to be ChrstianiZed. Now divide
the 1l,O50,0000o0 by tho 450,000000 already
Christianized, and it makes only twenty
five people for each Christian to bring
to Christ. Surely, when the church gets wide
awake, no Christian will be content to take to
heaven less than twenty-five. Why, hope
to take with me at least 10000. l know evan
gelist that have already gathered SO, 600 each
for the kingdom. There are at least 100000
men in Christendom whose one business it is
to save souls So that when l tell you all
that we need to average is twenty-five souls
reaped for God in lifetime, all idea OF I'M
possibility vanishes from this omnipotent
crusade l know of a Sabbath school teacher
who has spent her lifetime in teaching the
young, and she has had five different classes
during all these years, and she tells me they
averaged about seven in a class, and they
were all converted, and five times
seven are thirty-five, as near as I
can calculate. She brought her twenty-five
and had ton to spare. My grandmother
brought her whole family into the kingdom,
and her grandchildren, and, I hope, all her
great-grandchildren, for God remembers q
prayer IS years old as well as though it were
p1in,te. and she took her tIvantv-fva in+n
the kingdom and had at least 100 to spare
Besides that, the telegraph and telephone
viii, within few years, put the whole earth
into a compass of ten minutes. Consider
this and also that omnipotence, and omnis-
clence, and omnipresence preside over all the
work of betterrnent, and you will take this
enterprise of the worlds redemption out of
the impossibilities into the possibilities, and
then out of the possibilities into the probabili-
tics, and then out of the probabilities into the
certGinties. The building of the Union Pa
chc railroad from ocean to ocean was
greater undertaking than the girdling of the
earth with the Gospel, for the one enterprise
depended upon the human arm while the
other depends upon almightiness.
Do l really mean all the earth will SUI
render to Christi Yes. How about the un-
inviting portionsi viii Greenland be evan
more hundred brave lives are dashed out
among the icebergs, that great refrigerator,
the Polar region, will be given up to the
walrus and the bear, and that the inhabitants
will come down by invitation into toerable
climates or those climates may soften, and,
as it has been positively demonstrated that
the Arctic region was once a blooming garden
aud a fruitful field, those regions may change
climate and again be a blooming garden and
fruitful field. 1t is proved beyond contro-
versy by German and American scientists,
that the Arctic regions were the first portions
of this world inhabitable; the world hot be-
yond human endurance; those regions were
of course the first to be cool enough for
human foot and human lung. 1t is posi-
lively proved that that Arctic region was
a tropical climate Professor Heer of
Zurich says the remains of flowers have been
found in the Arctic, showing it was like
Mexico for climate, and it is found that the
Arctic was the mother region from which
all the flowers descended. Professor Wallace
says the remains of ell styles of animal life
arc found in the Arctic, including those
animals that can live only in warm climates.
Now, that Arctic region which had been
demonstrated by flora and fauna and geo
logical argument to have been as full of
vegetation and life as our Florida, may be
turned back to its original bloom and glory,
or it will be shut up as museum of crystals
for curiosity seekers once in while to visit.
But Arctic and Antarctic in some shape will
belong TO tho Rcdeemers realm.
What about other unproductive or re-
-pulsive regions? All the deserts will be irri-
gated the waters will be forced up to the
great American desert between here and the
Pacific by machinery now known or yet to
be invented and, great Salt Lake City has
no rain and could not raise an apple or a
bushel of wheat in 100 years without arti-
fetal help but is now through such means
one great garden, so oil the unproductive
parts of all the continents will be
turned into harvest fields and orchards A
half dozen De Lesseps will furnish the world
with all the canals needed, and will change
the course of rivers and open new lakes, and
GREAT Sahara desert will be cut up into farms
with an astounding yield of bushels to the
acre The marsh will be drained of its waters
and cured OF its malaria. l saw the other
Csav what was ormany years called the Black
Swamp-of Ohio, its chief crop chills and
fevers but now by the tiles put into the
ground to carry off the surplus moisture,
Transformed into the richest and healthiest of
regions. The God who wastes nothing,
think. means. that this world, from pole to
role. has to come to perfection Of foliage and
fruitage. For that reason He keeps us run
ming through space, though SO many fires are
blazing down in its timbers and so many
mock terrors have threatened to dash it to
pieces. As soon as the earth is completed
Christ will divide it up among the good The
reason he does not divide 1t now is because il
is not done A kind father will not divide
the apple among his children until the apple
is ripe. In fulfillment of the New Testament
promise, "The meek shall inherit the earth,
and the promise of the Old Testament. "H(
shall divide the spoil with the strong" tho
world win be apportiened to those worthy t.
possess it.